Thursday, November 1, 2018

From the depths of the desert sands, beneath the
unrelenting sun, Great Pharaoh, blessed of the Gods, has collected these
Objects of magic and power. Chronicled by the Scribe at the behest of
our God-King, every item has been meticulously recorded. Some items
protect the user while others aid the user in adventurous endeavors;
they may be portable or stationary. It is the sincerest wish of Pharaoh
that all find within this scroll items that bring Glory to their Names.
Within this 16 page PDF, you will find:

4 magical arms and armor that no desert traveler would be without

21 wondrous items that even the pharaohs would desire,

a rod said to be a gift from the Cat Goddess, and

a ring housing the spirit of the Western Desert

Don’t leave the pyramid without these exciting magic items.
Download the Treasury of the Sands for Pathfinder at the JBE Shop. You can also download this collection at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow, >Paizo, and d20PFSRD.

The last exclusive look that I wanted to get out last
week, I did not have time to post. So I took a few moments over the
weekend to prepare some of the maps from Deadly Delves: Quests of the Sands.
These two beautiful maps are from the short adventures Wreck of the
Golden Barque and the Bandit King’s Hideout. Each of these short
adventures, or quests, are enough for one night’s adventure with little
preparation needed for the GM. All of these are Egyptian themed but work
well for an Arabian themed campaign. Click on the image to see larger
versions of these maps.

Sunday, October 28, 2018

Outside a corrupted Necropilis, a Scarab Ogre attacks an Anubi Hero and
a band of City-Dwellers of Cynopolis. Crocodile Games

The land of Aegyptus is a place of many legends, from the
tales of the wondrous magical creations of the gods to the stories of deadly
monsters that lurk in mysterious places. One such legend is that of the
Scarab-Ogre. "Be good, or the Scarab-Ogre will get you." are the
words used by stern Anubi parents to frighten their misbehaving children, and "Beware
the Scarab-Ogre!" are the words spoken in hushed tones by spooked tomb
robbers, to explain the dark tunnel from whence their comrades never returned.
Only ever spoken of in whispers, the Scarab-Ogre was a story that everyone
feared but few actually believed in.

Yet the truth of the story was worse than
any dared to imagine.

The Anubi tell that during the time of the gods, Anubis
was served by the scarab-headed god Khepri, who drove his chariot through the
hazardous pathways of the Tuat. The tale of Khepri is a sad one, for the god
was killed during the first uprising of the Eater of the Dead, in the heroic
defense of the funeral city of Ankhara. What few people know is that Khepri was
in turn served by his own race of children, the reclusive and monastic Khepera.
In the deserts they toiled their long lives away in mystic ceremonies to
venerate the dead. They were few in number, but steadfast, loyal, and strong.
The last of their number disappeared during the Fall of Ankhara, still fighting
against the relentless horde of undead until finally swallowed by the sandstorm
the buried the entire city for over a thousand years. There, entombed in the
stifling darkness of the catacombs beneath Ankhara, the Khepera were overrun
and defeated. Somehow they were possessed and corrupted by the spirit of the
Eater of the Dead, and the legend of the Scarab-Ogres became a reality. Since
the rediscovery of Ankhara only a few years ago, some have encountered a
creature they claim to be the actual Scarab Ogre in the flesh.

The tales of
those few who have survived an encounter with the monster vary in the details.
The survivors are frequently delirious from the experience, and some are
actually driven beyond the point of madness. Attempts to describe the actual
appearance are oft met with bouts of violent tremors and horrified screaming as
the memory of the thing's awful visage is comes alive in their mind. Some
accounts describe the face as that of the skull-like Necrobaeus beetle, others
claim to have looked into two eyes, some as may as six, while others tell of no
face at all. only a slavering mouth at the end of a writhing tentacle.

Saturday, October 27, 2018

Apophis, also known as Apep, dating back into the 1500s BCE,
was the great water serpent god who slept in the mountains of Baku, rising with
the morning star, daily attacks Ra on his journeys through the daytime sky and
the underworld, and is subsequently destroyed each evening by Sobek, the god of
the crocodiles.

As we have seen in most other religions and cultures thus far,
the serpent seems to always hold some chthonic symbolism—that underworld
characterization as the giver of life, possessing the creator aspect that seems
ever present wherever the serpent is worshipped. Nowhere is this so evident and
pervasive than in the mysticism of ancient Egyptian religion and worship. In
the mythology and symbolism of Egypt exist some of the most glaring dualistic
contrasts between reverent worship of the serpent and fear-based repudiation.

The Egyptians’ reverence for the serpent’s life-giving
powers probably arose, in part, from—once again—observing them shedding their
skins, continually exposing a new resurrected body in the process. The god
Atum, the ancient Egyptian primeval creator deity, is represented in the form
of the serpent who seasonally shed his outer skin, a symbol of the continual
life, death, and new life cycle. At one point, Atum prophesies to Osiris, the
Egyptian god of the netherworld and final judgment, that he is going to destroy
the entire world he had created and revert back to his serpentine form.

Early-20th-century Dutch-born archaeologist Henri Frankfort,
who spent his life reconstructing ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian culture and
mythology, said of the Egyptian serpent gods, “The primeval snake survives when
everything else is destroyed at the end of time. Thus the serpent was strongly
and continually associated with creation and eternal existence in the ancient
Egyptian ethos. The Egyptians portrayed life itself by the image of the rearing
serpent, and a serpent biting its tail was a common Egyptian emblem for
‘eternity.’”

During the Egyptian Middle Kingdom (2030–1640 BCE),
post-11th Dynasty, the god Amun came onto the scene as the patron god of the
capitol city of Thebes. Amun in one of his manifestations was that of the
serpent god named Kematef (“he who has completed his time”). At Karnak, during
the beginning of the New Kingdom (1550–1090 BCE), Amun was merged with the sun
god Ra, when Pharaoh Ahknaten uprooted the entire Egyptian system of religion
and worship and decreed a new, monotheistic society. “Amun-Ra became the
monotheistic, supreme state-enforced/endorsed god of Egypt during this period.
Amun-Ra’s divine consort, the serpent goddess Mut (“the resplendent serpent”)
gave birth to a son named Khonsu.” Together, this holy triad, in the Egyptian
worldview, symbolized the perfect union both in the house of the gods as well
as being representative of the supreme social structure of the royal family.
And it was this family portrait that inextricably linked the house and family
of the pharaoh to the mythological serpent of Egyptian mythology. But
Ahkenaten’s monotheistic society lasted but one generation before it was
overthrown and the implementation of a reversion back to the polytheism took place.

All periods of Egyptian history, from the earliest
historical times all the way to the end of the New Kingdom, creation,
fertility, birth, the goodness of the gods, rebirth, and resurrection were all
embodied in the image of the serpent. Thermuthis was the serpent-headed goddess
to whom were brought offerings at the time of harvest, thanking her for
successful crops of both food and grape of the vine.

The Father of Serpents, Geb, was the god of earth and “the
father of the gods.” The snake was linked to life after death and the recurring
cycle of life due to Egyptian obsession with the quest for eternal life, and he
became a symbol of survival after death and even resurrection among the ancient
Egyptians. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, sometimes referred to by its more
precise title, The Book of Going Forth by Day, in chapter 87, we are told that
transformation into a serpent upon death gives new life to the deceased.

A serpent goddess in pre-dynastic Egypt set the stage for
her veneration as an enduring symbol throughout the rest of dynastic Egyptian
history. The most important serpent of Lower Egypt was Wadjet (“the green one”)
who eventually became the symbol of a unified Egypt and its royal house. It was
this serpent goddess whose name became synonymous with the general Egyptian
term for cobra and the foundation for the creation of the symbol of the uraeus,
the standing figure of the cobra found most often as the headpiece on the royal
Egyptian crowns. The cobra/uraeus became such an important piece of Egyptian
iconography that the life of the Pharaoh became known as the living years of
the uraeus. Wadjet not only became physically represented on the Pharaoh’s
crown as his guardian and protector, but eventually was bestowed the title of
the Eye of Ra. Her green color, significantly, became the color that
represented resurrection in ancient Egypt, and Wadjet, also referred to as “the
green one,” embodied the forces of health and fertility. As with most gods out
of antiquity, you can quickly see how numerous titles continued to be added on,
as the powers and influence of the god evolved in worship (Wadjet: the green
uraeus of the Pharaoh, the Eye of Ra, the protector and guardian of the life of
the Pharaoh, the power of fertility and good health).

Representing the oppositional character of the Egyptian
serpent was the Serpent God of Darkness, the winged, fire-spewing Apophis, What
Wadjet was to all that was good in ancient Egypt, Apophis was her counterpart,
representing the demonic forces, evil gods, and powers of the bleak underworld.
Apophis was the serpent of darkness, in complete opposition to the sun god Ra,
who was the light of the world. But Apophis, albeit the antithesis to Ra, was
never more powerful. He simply counterbalanced the serpent Mehen (“the coiled
one”) who was the protector of the sun god Ra, assisting him on his journey
through the realm of night to be reborn every morning. And as you find in many
cultures and religions, the powers of darkness are thwarted by the power of
good. As Satan is to God, so Apophis is to Ra, with minor alterations to the
functionality.

It has been said time and again that the ancient Egyptians
were utterly preoccupied with death—at least the royal family’s, as far as can
be seen. Their entire lives, especially when a seated Pharaoh, were consumed
with the afterlife and the resurrection. There is an interesting entry in the
Pyramid Texts, the funerary papyri of ancient Egypt. In these documents is
listed something for which there is very little explanation: the “snake game,”
presumably a test of sorts, played out in the afterlife when a Pharaoh died—a
game he has to win. How interesting a tie to modern Christinaity would that
be!? The notion of an Egyptian judgment, test, or fist-a-cuff in order to enter
the beautiful wonders of the afterlife seem a colloquial version of a much
greater religious prime.

In the New Kingdom, particularly by the time of the
Eighteenth Dynasty (when Egypt had imperialistic concerns), there was the
establishment of a large and professional army with an organised hierarchy.
This hierarchy seemingly created alternative routes to power which were even
open to uneducated men. This meant that the traditional clerical
administrators, trained by scribes, had to share military power with a new
military class and this new development supposedly played an important role in
the rise of the so-called ‘warrior pharaohs’ who emerged during the Eighteenth
to Twentieth Dynasties.

According to Redford, the New Kingdom army comprised of a
core of fulltime soldiers (who in times of peace would be stationed at the
various garrisons throughout Egypt), supplemented during times of war by
conscripted men from temple communities. The archery units were apparently the
group feared most, mainly due to their use of the composite bow; a weapon that
was more powerful by far than its predecessor, the simple bow. These archery
units either made up an entire battalion of their own or were attached to
various infantry units.

Recruitment into the Egyptian military for the core
soldiers, in the New Kingdom at least, began early in a boy’s life and boys coming
from military families would generally tend to serve in the same units as their
fathers. The techniques that the young recruits would learn were part of a
rigorous training course: marching techniques, proficiency with weapons, and
military discipline were the order of the day for these young soldiers. Some of
the New Kingdom literary texts seemed to be designed to discourage young men
from joining the army. Papyrus Anastasi III, for example, suggested that for
young recruits the training was brutal, with talk of body blows and heads
splitting open from the beatings meted out to new recruits within the infantry.

Yet in contrast to the somewhat cynical view of army life
presented by Papyrus Anastasi III, other evidence suggests that military life, at
least in the New Kingdom, could be fairly agreeable. For example, Ramesses II’s
Battle of Kadesh reliefs at the temples of Luxor and Abu Simbel portray army
life, including the setting-up of a temporary camp. The encamped soldiers are
surrounded by a barrier comprised of the soldiers’ shields, along with stabling
for horses and cattle. The scene is complete with the depiction right in the
centre of the encampment of the royal pavilion and the tents of the military
hierarchy. Whether or not this is a realistic portrayal, it is certainly a
vivid one. It does not, however, illustrate the training of the recruits.
Another such example is found in the Memphite tomb of Horemheb and depicts a
military camp at rest. Earlier in the Eighteenth Dynasty, Akhenaten’s training
of young soldiers is described in one of the hymns in a tomb at Amarna, where
Akhenaten is credited with training thousands of troops himself.

Whilst the training during the New Kingdom, and indeed
during any period of Dynastic Egypt, could be brutal (resulting in a great deal
of physical pain and hardship) there were also great rewards to be had from a
life in the military. During service, much like the rewards possible from
service in the Roman army, there was the possibility of advancement through the
army ranks and the ever-present chance of spoils of war from combat victories.
Those soldiers who survived the military and active service through to their
retirement were gifted with land and livestock. This can be seen in the Wilbour
Papyrus, dated to the reign of Ramesses V, which includes veteran soldiers
(including Sherden mercenaries) in the lists the people renting land in Middle
Egypt. The New Kingdom army was also supported by a small army in itself of
craftsmen (necessary for creating and maintaining the weaponry), porters,
drivers, animal handlers, and cooks, to name but a few (much as with any army,
ancient or modern).

During the New Kingdom an edict issued by Horemheb states
that, within the country of Egypt itself, there were two army corps which
corresponded to the north and south of the country (Lower and Upper Egypt
respectively). The royal bodyguard positions were served in ten-day cycles,
with provincial soldiers serving the shifts. In contrast, during a campaign,
there were three or four principal divisions of around 5000 soldiers, made up
of a combination of conscripted men and professional full-time soldiers. These
divisions took their names from a deity and followed it with a suitable
epithet; it is likely that the deity names for the divisions were taken from
the local deity of the area from which the soldiers had been recruited.

The ancient Egyptian infantry had a hierarchical structure
that resembled the armies of most developing civilisations, including the highest
rank in the Middle Kingdom (the ‘great overseer of the army’) which could be
said to be the equivalent of the Western rank of general. The title of
‘general’ (not actually an ancient Egyptian term but a modern English
translation) itself appears rarely until the reign of Amenhotep III. It is at
this point that there was a major reorganisation of the Egyptian military and a
more comprehensive division of the infantry and the chariotry. As stated above,
there was a core group of full-time soldiers supplemented by conscripted men in
times of war, with some later Eighteenth Dynasty soldiers spending their whole
working lives in the army. However, it was more common for careers to combine
both military administrative service and work in civil administration.

The infantry was generally divided into units known as
companies, which comprised several groups of fifty men that were then divided
further still into platoons of ten. Companies could comprise different
armaments; some were made up only of archers whereas others were infantry armed
with weapons such as spears and axes designed primarily for close-combat
situations. These companies would take their names from their pharaoh,
sometimes referring to the monarch’s battleprowess. This changed during the
reign of Akhenaten, with associations with the Aten (as well as their pharaoh)
being included.

The extent of the military innovations achieved by the
ancient Egyptians is open to debate. Briefly, however, armour development was
seemingly restricted to padded caps and rawhide shields, with the chariots
apparently designed for speed rather than protection and force. The chariot
driver did wear a level of protective clothing, including some body armour and
a helmet of either leather or bronze, while the other chariot passenger would
be armed with a bow and javelins. This armour and chariot design would suggest
that the Egyptian soldiers were perhaps not strong in defence and relied mainly
on their weapons and mode of attack. This suggestion is conjecture on the part
of Redford based on the lack of armour development in Egypt.

The chariot was used by the maryannu, who were an elite
corps within the New Kingdom army, and have been described as young heroes;
part of an aristocratic warrior class modelled on an Asiatic military elite
also named maryannu. The maryannu are referred to variously as chariot warriors
and also as army aristocracy. The general consensus is that the maryannu were
elite soldiers and charioteers and, for some, the maryannu were the most
ostentatious chariot warriors of the ancient world. The chariotry was organised
into groups of fifty and had a very important administrative infrastructure;
during, and after, the Eighteenth Dynasty, the administrative titles were not
limited to non-combatants alone; chariot warriors could also hold these titles.

By the time of the New Kingdom, warfare between Egypt and
enemies from the Near East became a battle between the elite units, with a
definite emphasis on the chariotry. Being part of a chariot unit required not
only a great deal of wealth but great skill and specialisation; the skills
needed to control a chariot moving at speed, as well as firing arrows when
travelling at such speeds, requiring considerable practice, enhancing the
status of those who were involved in the chariotry. The two soldiers associated
with the chariot are generally described as 1) the warrior and 2) the driver
and shield-bearer.

The bow and arrow has been described as the weapon of choice
for the maryannu; they were apparently devoted to sports such as shooting with
the bow and arrow, javelin-throwing, and the art of fighting from chariots. The
construction of the chariot itself, and the form its crew took, ensured the
creation of an effective fastmoving stage from which weapons such as the bow
and arrow and the javelin could be effectively utilised. The power of the
composite bow meant that it was used a great deal in chariot-fighting and it
was appreciably shorter than a self-bow making Warfare in Ancient Egypt 27 it
more manageable in a chariot. With expertise such as this it is not surprising
that the maryannu were seen as elite soldiers.

The Egyptian army at times also had troops known as
‘auxiliaries’; foreign troops that would serve in each branch of the ancient
Egyptian military, either integrated into existing units or in their own
separate units. These foreign troops would use specific weapons that differed
from those used by the native Egyptian troops, as well as carrying out tasks
that were particular to them and their skills. As with the Roman Army,
comprised of soldiers from many different countries and states in the Roman
Empire, some auxiliaries seemingly became members of Egyptian society, having
served in the Egyptian military for a sufficient length of time. Acculturation,
such as instruction in the Egyptian language, and rewards, such as the
provision of land upon retirement, would be used at times by the Egyptians to
ensure the loyalty of their foreign troops. This could be an effective
technique; if a foreign soldier spent enough time away from his home and
acclimatised to his new surroundings, then he might well begin to display some
loyalty to his new ‘home’. The promise of a worthwhile reward at the end of his
service would only increase loyalty to the Egyptian army, since land was a
highly valuable commodity. Again, there are obvious parallels here with the
design and procedures of the Roman army.

The first recorded auxiliary troops were apparently the
Nubians, recruited to fight for the Upper Egyptians during the First
Intermediate Period in their campaign against the Heracleopolitans in Lower
Egypt. These Nubian recruits, called the Medjoy (or Medjay), were later
renowned for their roles in the ancient Egyptian military, as the ancient
Egyptian equivalent of policemen, as well as being archers and scouts. The
Medjoy continued to be in use in the Middle Kingdom, apparently playing a
crucial role in pharaoh Kamose’s re-conquest of Egypt towards the end of the
Second Intermediate Period, and during the New Kingdom. Indeed, by the time of
the Eighteenth Dynasty the term Medjoy no longer referred to just Nubian
soldiers but was used in reference to policemen and patrolmen in general.84
These Nubian troops were very much in demand, with examples of Egyptian vassals
in Syria-Palestine requesting the aid of these soldiers in order to
successfully defend their cities during the Amarna period.

There were other foreign troops that served in the ancient
Egyptian military, with instances of Asiatics serving in the ancient Egyptian
army, though (in the Old Kingdom at least) they were rarer than the Nubian
auxiliaries. By the Middle Kingdom period, there were times when Asiatic
military units were actually settled within Egypt’s borders, which again is a
practice that has definite parallels with the structure of the Roman army.